I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of computers. More particularly, the present invention relates to a heat sink assembly to be utilized in computers to assist in the cooling of, and dissipation of heat from, a computer hard drive assembly.
II. Description of the Related Art
As an electrical device, computers typically give off considerable amounts of heat. It is well known that computer cabinets typically have small fan assemblies mounted therein which pull cooling air into the cabinet from the ambient exterior and circulate the air through the cooling cabinet, and ultimately across and around the computer components and then exhaust the cooling air back to the exterior. Typically, these types of fans are mounted in the back panel of a computer and cause the flow of air from the front of the computer across the components and out the back of the computer. Obviously, the flow of air can be accomplished by any reasonable air moving means as long as the computer components are adequately cooled.
However, with the advent of larger and more powerful computer components, especially in the area of memory hard drives, wherein the hard drives operate at exceptionally high speeds, there is a tremendous amount of heat generated by such a hard drive. Obviously, this type of heat needs to be dissipated from the hard drive to protect the hard drive from failure, and the same heat must be disposed of to the ambient atmosphere so that the heat does not affect other components of the computer.
Heat sinks are well known in the electrical arts for dissipating heat from electrical components. In the prior art, there has been no heat sink which has been specifically designed to fit computer hard drives for the efficient dissipation of the heat generated by the hard drives.